Portable communication devices such as cellular telephones include speakers for presenting audio signals to a user. The speaker converts electrical signals into voice, music, tones, ring tones and other acoustic data. The maximum acoustic energy of the signal produced by the speaker depends, at least in part, on the size of the speaker. In many conventional devices, the size of the speaker is often minimized in order to minimize the size and cost of the portable device. Relatively small speakers are used in devices that are intended to be placed near the user's ear during operation. Although the speaker may be used on a speaker phone mode in low noise environments, the primary purpose of the speaker is for proximate use where the speaker is near the user's ear. The speaker, therefore, is positioned within the portable device such that the speaker is placed near the user's ear during communication. The short distance between the ear and the speaker allows the user to hear the audio signals although the magnitudes of the signals are relatively low. In some devices however, larger speakers must be used in order to produce sound at adequate volume for other uses. For example, push-to-talk (PTT) devices operate in accordance with two-way radio techniques where the device is held in front of the user's face and not against the ear. During operation, the speaker must be able to produce sound at power levels adequate to overcome the distance between the speaker and the ear as well as any noise that may be present.
Conventional portable communication devices are limited in that the speaker is the optimum size for only some of the uses of the device. Devices are therefore manufactured for use in only limited situations. For example, a non-PTT cellular telephone may not provide adequate sound levels in a PTT operation and the larger speaker in a PTT device is not needed in non-PTT operation unnecessarily increasing cost and size of the portable communication device.